BANGALORE: Infosys has delayed bringing on board some of the 28,000 engineers hired from campuses to as late as July 2013, a visible sign of the growth engine slowing down at the Bangalore-based software exporter.

Engineering graduates who were offered jobs at campus placements in August-September 2011 have started receiving their joining dates, which extend anywhere from September 2012 to July 2013.

"Based on business imperatives and manpower requirements, we expect onboarding of fresh hires to be completed by the first quarter of fiscal 2014 (which ends in June)," Infosys said in an emailed reply.

For a company struggling to match industry growth rates, this may erode its perception on campuses besides raising further investor scrutiny, at a time it is seeking to pursue a changed strategic direction with higher focus on software products and business platforms. Infosys has also temporarily frozen salaries for its 1.5 lakh staff and cut variable pay.

After sales shrunk 2% in the March quarter from three months ago, Infosys expects flat sales growth in the three months to June. For the full year, it expects to grow 8-10%, which is lower than the 11-14% sector growth forecast by industry body Nasscom or the 20% forecast from Cognizant.

Compared with the just-concluded fiscal, when Infosys completed onboarding of campus recruits by March, it is a delay of one quarter.

However, compared to Wipro, which said it finished fresher onboarding by January, it is a six-month delay. Infosys hiring forecast for the year to March is 35,000, as against 45,000 engineers it hired in the just-concluded fiscal.

Those in the recruitment sector say such delays are not uncommon. "A stagger in the joining happens because of two reasons. One is when the order pipeline is not very strong and the campus recruits are taken in batches over a long period. The other is when they are recruited to improve efficiency by re-skilling keeping projects in mind," says Aditya Narayan Mishra, GM (staffing), Randstad India.

"It could be a manifestation of the already acknowledged slowdown in growth, or it could be a response to fresh reduction in growth visibility," said a Mumbai-based analyst with a foreign brokerage who did not want to be identified as he is not the authorised spokesperson.

The delayed absorption of campus hires is also seen as an effort by Infosys to honour all the campus offers it gave out at a time the industry's demand perception was not as grim as it is today.

For at least a year now, Infosys has been underperforming the industry and peers, which the Bangalore-based company blames on an organisational restructuring that happened during the period and some management changed that took place at some of its clients, which delayed project ramp ups.

Over the past few days, disappointed graduates, who now have to wait at least a year before their first job, have begun giving voice to their frustration on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Some are even looking to take up part-time jobs or approach rival companies, such as Cognizant.